


(in love is) where we belong

by shineyma



Series: where we belong [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 19:59:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9009826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: There's something strange in the lead-up to Jemma and Grant's wedding.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jdphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/gifts).



> This fic is a Christmas gift for JD, who I love lots and lots and lots. She is the absolute best and I hope she enjoys this fic even half as much as I enjoy having her in my life. <3
> 
> As for the rest of you, you are ALSO welcome to enjoy the fic! I'm very grateful for every reader and extra grateful for commenters. I hope you have spectacular Christmases if you celebrate!

“Oh! It’s _beautiful_!”

“Thought you’d like that,” Grant says smugly as he snaps the box shut. “How well do I know my girl?”

“ _Very_ well.” Jemma makes a grab for the box. “Now hand it over!”

“Nope,” he says, holding it high above his head and, consequentially, far out of her reach. Not that that stops her for attempting to jump for it. “This is for _after_ the wedding.”

“What do you mean, after?” she demands, giving up for the moment. He’ll get complacent soon enough; it will be child’s play to grab once he’s let his guard down. “Why on earth would you buy me such a stunning—and, I suspect, horribly expensive—necklace if not to wear _at_ our wedding?”

It’s hardly the sort of thing she could wear to the _office_ , after all.

He waves a dismissive hand. “You’ve got Melinda’s stuff to wear at the wedding—you know my dad’ll be heartbroken if you don’t.”

True. Phil’s such a sentimental man; he actually teared up at the prospect of Jemma getting married in his wife’s wedding jewelry. (Understandable, since his own daughter is currently undergoing a phase—or at least, they _hope_ it’s a phase—in which she’s sworn off marriage as nothing but a tool The Man uses to control them.)

“No,” Grant continues, turning away to place the box on top of their refrigerator. (Drat. There’s no way she can reach it there, not without attracting his notice.) “ _This_ is for the honeymoon.”

“The—?”

“I’m picturing you, naked, spread out on the hotel bed.” He wraps his arms around her waist, tugging her up against him as his voice drops into the low register that never fails to make her heart pound. “Wearing nothing but a smile and that necklace.” Inches away from kissing her, he pauses, eyes drifting to the side in consideration. “Maybe some hickies, too.”

Well. If _that’s_ what’s in store for her…a week isn’t so long to wait, really.

“What about you?” she asks, winding her arms around his neck. “Where will you be?”

His smile is wicked. “Why don’t we run through a few options? A little dress rehearsal never hurt anyone.”

“Practice makes perfect,” she agrees—and then squeaks as she finds herself scooped up into a bridal carry.

“My thoughts exactly.”

 

 

* * *

 

  

Several rounds of fantastic sex later, the two of them lie comfortably snuggled in their bed. Well, semi-comfortably; Grant is on his stomach, playfully complaining about the scratches she’s left on his back. Draped over it as she is, she has an excellent view of them, and though they’re not nearly severe enough to justify the fuss he’s making, she must admit they are rather deep. It’s a good thing she’s already scheduled a pre-wedding manicure; clearly her nails are in need of a good trim.

“Seriously, how bad are they?” Grant asks. “Are they gonna scar? Should we go to the hospital?”

“Oh shush,” she scolds, pinching his side. “They’re not _that_ bad. You’ve surely had worse—in fact, I know you have. Such as the time you got _shot_ and told me it was ‘just a scratch, baby’.”

She puts on her most exaggerated impression of his accent, the better to emphasize how stupid she _still_ finds that reasoning, three whole years later. Grant doesn’t even have the decency to look sheepish.

“Yeah, but when I was shot I got medical care,” he points out. “And sympathy, which I note is pretty lacking in this bed right now.”

“Oh, fine.” Unable to contain a smile, she shifts up that she might drop a gentle kiss to each of the scratches on his nearer shoulder. “There. Sympathy and medical care, all in one.”

“Kissing it better, really? That’s the best first aid you’ve got?” he teases.

“As it happens, yes,” she says. “I’m not _that_ kind of doctor, you know.”

He surprises her with a loud groan, of the sort that would usually follow a horrible pun (were he not absurdly fond of them, that is). A little stung, Jemma pulls back.

“What?” she asks. “It wasn’t _that_ bad a joke!”

Grant rolls onto his back, giving her a look at his furrowed brow.

“No, it wasn’t,” he says slowly. “Sorry, that was—weird.”

“What was?”

“I don’t know,” he says, tugging her closer. “It was like some kind of…really intense déjà vu. You’ve never made that joke before, have you?”

“No. In fact, I’ve been saving it for _ages_ , looking for an opening,” she confesses.

It gets her a smile, if only a small one. “Of course you have. But just for a second, I felt like you’d made it a million times already. Like my dad and all his hand puns—to the point where it’s not even cheesy anymore, just annoying.”

“That _is_ weird,” she says, frowning at his distraction. He’s scowling off into the middle distance, appearing truly aggravated. “So…no more doctor jokes, then?”

“Oh no,” he says, attention snapping back to her. “No, you make as many jokes as you like, baby.”

“Good answer,” she praises and, finally fully recovered from their last round, pushes herself up and over to straddle him. “Now, let’s see if we can’t drum up a nicer form of déjà vu, hm?”

 

 

* * *

 

  

The next day, Jemma has all but forgotten Grant’s odd feeling from the night before. She’s hip deep in wedding preparation, rounding up the last few details and—if she’s to be totally honest—micromanaging the set up.

And preparations aren’t the only thing she’s micromanaging. In anticipation of her wedding and subsequent honeymoon, she’s taken a full month off of work. It was planned for well in advance, of course, and the other doctors in her practice are very competent and perfectly capable of handling any emergencies her usual patients might have…and yet she frequently catches herself fretting about how things might be going.

It’s ridiculous, really—what could possibly go wrong?—but she simply can’t help it.

Halfway through a final read through of the catering menu, she gives up on fighting her worry.

“I’ll just call Fitz and check in,” she decides, reaching for her phone—and then stops dead, stunned by her own words.

Grant chooses that moment to pass through the kitchen, and he slows at finding her frozen mid-motion.

“Jem?” he asks. “Something wrong?”

“No, I…” She sits back in her chair, frowning at her phone. “I was just worrying about things at the office, so I thought I should call Fitz to check in.”

“Fitz?” he echoes. “I didn’t know you’d hired anyone new lately.”

“That’s just it. I haven’t.”

“Then…I don’t understand,” he says, perching on the edge of the table. “I thought I knew everyone at your office.”

“You _do_ ,” she says. For no discernable reason, she’s suddenly near tears. “Fitz doesn’t work with me. He was a friend I had in primary school, that’s all. I haven’t thought of him in years—and I certainly don’t know how to contact him. I have no idea what made me think he’d know anything about—about _anything_.”

Grant blinks, taking that in, and then shakes his head.

“Okay, _you_ are obviously working way too hard,” he declares. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Go?” she asks, even as she allows him to pull her to her feet. “Go where?”

“We’ve been invited to my parents’ house for dinner,” he says. “And as much as I’m _not_ looking forward to round six hundred and seventy-three of Daisy’s suggestions of better people you could marry, it sounds like you need a break.”

Jemma smiles, pushing away her lingering disorientation. “That sounds lovely, actually.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Easy for you to say.”

“Don’t worry, darling; I’ll stop her before she gets to the dictator portion of the list.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Dinner is, as anticipated, absolutely delightful.

Jemma and Grant are no strangers to the table; they have dinner with his father and stepmother once or twice a week. It started with a sort of housewarming dinner when Phil and Melinda moved to the city a few months ago, having chosen to retire as close to their son (and, as heavy hints have been frequently dropped, their eventual grandchildren) as possible, but they all had such a good time, it became a habit.

Daisy, Grant’s sister, is rather harder to pin down—she’s a hacktivist and a free spirit, disdaining all roots; Jemma suspects she’s actually living in her van at the moment—but she’s in town for the wedding and a more than welcome addition to their semi-regular family dinners.

And her mostly-feigned shock and confusion over there being a woman who agreed to marry Grant—not to mention her wild suggestions as to how Grant might have _secured_ said agreement—are hysterical.

Case in point, halfway through dessert she sets down her fork and loudly proclaims, “Brainwashing!”

A strange chill runs down Jemma’s spine.

“Daisy,” Phil starts.

“No, no, hear me out,” she says. “Obviously Grant fell in love the second he met Jemma, right, because who wouldn’t?”

“Who indeed,” Jemma agrees, chill forgotten.

“But Jemma’s smart and she knew better than to settle for _Grant_ , so she turned him down. Then, instead of accepting the rejection like a normal person, he used his scary government contacts to brainwash her into thinking she loved him back. It all makes sense now!”

Grant sighs into his coffee. “You’re so lucky you’re an only child,” he says to Jemma.

“I notice you’re not denying it,” she says archly.

“Well, what’s a little brainwashing between friends?” he teases. He’s had an arm draped over the back of her chair since he finished eating, and now squeezes her shoulder. “And you can’t fault my taste.”

“See, he admits it!” Daisy pulls out her phone. “Just wait till I tell twitter I have actual confirmed proof of government brainwashing!”

“No tweeting about your brother,” Melinda says without looking up from her pie.

“But mo-oooom—”

“Ah, nostalgia.” Phil beams. “If you think this is bad, Jemma, you should’ve seen them in their teenage years.”

“I can only imagine,” Jemma says, smiling as she does so. She’s experiencing her own pleasant wave of nostalgia—something she can only attribute to growing up watching television programs full of bickering siblings. After all, she’s an only child, as were all of her friends in her younger years. It wasn’t until she started dating Grant that she ever witnessed such antics in person.

“Oh, these two defied imagination,” Phil assures her before turning to Melinda. “Remember that year Daisy refused to eat Christmas dinner in the same room as Grant?”

“Hey! That was totally reasonable,” Daisy says.

Melinda gives her a flat look. “You ate in the backyard. In the snow.”

“Grant threatened to drive me back to the orphanage!” Daisy defends, then pauses. “Actually, now that I think about it—” she glares at Grant “— _you_ should’ve eaten in the backyard.”

“You were the one who didn’t want to eat in the same room,” Grant says, unruffled. “And you deserved that threat and you know it.”

“Oh, come _on_ —”

“Look what you started,” Melinda says in undertone to Phil.

“More wine, Jemma?” Phil offers loudly.

Jemma can only laugh.

 

 

* * *

 

  

Stumbling through the front door two hours later, Jemma is forced to face the possibility she might have indulged a bit too much.

“Whoa there,” Grant says, steadying her as she nearly trips on the hall rug. Jemma clings happily to him, reveling in his warm, familiar strength.

“I think I’m drunk,” she confides.

“Caught that, did you?” he asks. “You sure were knocking back that wine. Don’t know if I really wanna marry a boozehound.”

“Yes, you do,” she says assuredly. “You loooooooooove me.”

He laughs into her hair. “Yeah, I do. C’mon, let’s get you to bed.”

“Okay,” she agrees. “But I’m sleepy, so you’re going to have to do all the work.”

“You are _way_ too plastered to be a good time tonight,” he says, steering her towards the stairs. “I’ll take a rain check on that, thanks.”

“I _had_ a good time,” she counters. “I like your family.”

“They like you, too.”

“I’m sorry you never got to meet mine,” she adds. They’ve reached the bedroom; Grant urges her with gentle pressure to sit on the edge of the bed and then—like the prince of a man he is—kneels to remove her ridiculously (but attractively) strappy shoes. “My father would’ve liked you.”

She realizes the absurdity of her words even as Grant stills.

“I thought your father—”

“I don’t know why I said that,” she says, feeling queerly faint. “My father died before I was even _born_.”

Grant’s thumb sweeps over the knob of her ankle, sending a pleasant shiver through her. It collides with the dread his expression has put in the hollow of her stomach, leaving her almost nauseous.

“Before dinner,” he says slowly, “Dad was telling me about how in the run-up to his marriage to Melinda, he kept feeling like he’d forgotten something really important. He asked me if I’d felt it, and I—I almost told him I couldn’t remember whether I’d invited Thomas.”

Jemma’s heart drops…and the haze of alcohol seems to go with it. Suddenly, she’s perfectly sober.

“But Thomas is…”

“Also dead. Yeah.”

His little brother’s death was the catalyst for Grant being removed from his abusive biological parents’ home and, ultimately, adopted by Phil. That’s not the sort of thing he should _forget_ —any more than Jemma should forget that she never met her father.

For a long, long moment, they stare at each other in silence. Jemma’s pulse pounds in her ears, twice as fast as the loud ticking of the clock in the hall.

“We’re—we’re stressed,” she says eventually. “With the wedding and—and you’ve been working overtime to make up for the time we’ll be away. We’re just…distracted and tired. That’s all.”

“Yeah,” Grant says. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.”

His tone is confident, though he doesn’t look it any more than she feels it.

The rest of their nightly ritual passes in tense silence, and despite the relatively early hour, Grant joins her when she climbs into bed. If he holds her a little too tightly, she doesn’t mention it—just as he, in turn, doesn’t mention her tears.

She’s glad. She doesn’t know how she’d explain them if he did.

 

 

* * *

 

  

That night, Jemma has a horrendous nightmare. By the time she wakes—screaming—she’s already forgotten it. All she knows is that for nearly twenty minutes afterward, she can’t bear to have Grant hold her.

 

 

* * *

 

  

In the morning, things seem brighter. Once assured that Jemma had no more nightmares after the one, Grant teases her about her bedhead, and she retaliates by tackling him back onto the bed.

Needless to say, they’re both soon distracted.

 _Very_ distracted.

Sex with Grant has always been phenomenal. Something about the two of them simply _clicked_ from the very start; they fell into an immediate rhythm almost without trying. Oh, there were missteps, of course, the occasional misaligning kinks, but for the most part? They just _work_.

Something about this morning, though…it seems… _more_.

Grant’s skin is warm, nearly buzzing beneath her lips; his callused hands are firm and strong, holding her in place as he demands an apology for the tackling; once inside her he nearly burns her up; the scrape of his stubble against her neck sends an electric current all the way through her; his thrusts are hard and fast but not enough; she arches up into him, needing _more_ —

The aftermath finds Jemma shaking from the strength of her orgasm. Grant, collapsed beside her, is similarly affected.

“Wow,” he says.

“Quite,” she agrees.

They lie for a while in silence, catching their breath and waiting for their hearts to slow.

Finally, Grant says, “Remind me to insult your hair more often.”

Jemma hits him with her pillow.

 

 

* * *

 

  

They’re both strangely tactile all morning. Not to say that they don’t usually touch each other; it’s only that the need to get themselves to work on time requires that they keep their distance in the mornings. Usually Grant makes breakfast while Jemma showers, then showers while Jemma eats, and then they have just enough time for a quick snog before they have to be out the door.

But Grant’s finally off work, which means neither of them has anywhere to be until the afternoon. So Jemma sits on the counter as Grant cooks, stealing kisses and bites of food, and once it’s done they eat together, ankles knocking beneath the table.

The frenzied need that drove their lovemaking to new heights has faded, leaving only a pleasant hum in Jemma’s veins. The comfort and love between them is almost a physical thing this morning, a third presence at their table, and she catches herself thinking—not for the first time—of children. They agreed ages ago to revisit that conversation once they were married, and surely a few days before the wedding is close enough?

As she deposits their dirty dishes in the sink, she prepares to bring up the subject. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get the chance, because the kitchen’s comfortable silence is broken abruptly when Grant’s chair screeches against the tile and then falls over with a bang. She whirls to find he’s up and out of it, backing swiftly away from—

—from a…low-hanging storm cloud? In their _living room_?

Jemma gapes, at a complete loss for words. She’s stunned into stupefaction; a sudden crack of thunder (from the _storm cloud in her living room_ ) nearly makes her jump out of her skin, and then there’s nothing but Grant’s back and Grant’s broad shoulders, filling up her vision as he places himself firmly between her and the cloud.

(The _storm cloud_. In her _living room_.)

There’s a bright flash—lightning, it must be, and she has the utterly inane thought that their lovely new hardwood must be _ruined_ —and then a sort of _zing_ shoots through her, raising the hair on her arms.

Then, silence.

It doesn’t last long.

“What,” Grant says flatly, “the _fuck_.”

“Hello to you, too,” says—Grant?

 _What_?

Peeking around her fiancé, Jemma finds that there’s an almost exact double of him in their (now thankfully free of any kind of weather) living room. He’s dressed all in black, wearing a Kevlar vest and sporting an odd-looking gun, but otherwise he’s identical to the man she’s hiding behind.

“Oh, you’re here, too.” _That_ comes from a carbon copy of Jemma herself—also, to her surprise (though really, the emotion’s lost nearly all meaning by this point), dressed in Kevlar and holding a gun. “ _Please_ don’t tell me you’re—”

“Married?” Grant’s double asks, strangely eager. “Please say you’re married.”

“E-engaged,” Jemma stutters. “The wedding’s this weekend.”

Jemma’s double buries her face in her free hand. Grant’s double—there’s really no other word for it— _cackles_.

“How many does that make now?” he asks. “Seventeen? Eighteen?”

“ _Sixteen_ ,” Jemma’s double corrects quickly. “The one where I had amnesia doesn’t count. You can’t expect a woman without her memory to—”

“I’m sorry,” Grant says, though he doesn’t sound it. In point of fact, he sounds quite angry. “ _What_ is going on?”

“Right,” his double says. “Short version: alternate universes are real. We’re from one.”

“Alternate universes?” Jemma asks, strangely fascinated by the idea. (Which, really. Of all the things to focus on. She’d be embarrassed if this entire moment weren’t too bizarre for words.) “Like in Red Dwarf?”

The question gets her an odd, piercing look from her double. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m…an ophthalmologist,” Jemma says, wondering what that has to do with anything.

Both doubles appear thrown.

“Well _that’s_ a new one,” Grant’s double says.

Does that mean that the other Jemma _isn’t_ an ophthalmologist? What is she, then?

Before she can ask, her double straightens, expression becoming stern.

“Okay,” she says, “I need you to be honest with me, Jemma.”

Grant—still half in front of her—tenses, even as Jemma’s stomach goes tight with nerves.

“Okay?” she more asks than says.

“Have you been threatened?” her double asks. “Blackmailed? Coerced? Has he hurt you? You don’t have to live with his abuse—”

“Grant would _never_!”

“I would _never_!”

Their overlapping exclamations seem almost to disappoint Jemma’s double. _Grant’s_ double only appears entertained.

“Give it up, Simmons,” he says. “Face it, we’re meant for each other. We’ve been to more than twenty universes now, and the only ones where we aren’t together are the ones where we haven’t _met_.”

The prospect is oddly warming. Jemma smiles up at Grant and finds him already watching her, expression soft.

“And _ours_ ,” Jemma’s double counters. “Clearly we’ve just hit a patch of tragic universes. I’m sure as we keep going we’ll find some better ones.”

Grant’s double rolls his eyes.

“Okay,” Grant says, expression hardening as he looks back to their doubles. “Assuming we believe that you’re really from an alternate universe and not just some…shared hallucination, what the hell are you doing here?”

“We’re not a hallucination,” Jemma’s double says.

Grant’s double doesn’t bother to address that point. “Have things been weird around here lately? Maybe you’re saying things you don’t mean to say or things that don’t make sense? Feeling weird, inexplicable surges of emotion?”

Jemma stares at him, peripherally aware that her Grant is doing the same.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says dryly.

“To make a very, _very_ long story short,” her own double says, “the…let’s call it _fabric_ of the multiverse is…unraveling. The walls between universes are becoming weaker, allowing certain thoughts and impulses to leak through.”

“That…doesn’t sound good,” Grant says.

“It’s not,” his double agrees. “In fact, it’s a massive fucking problem and a pain in my ass to fix.”

Jemma’s double scoffs, drawing a strange blue device from the backpack she’s carrying.

“Oh, please,” she says, even as she extends what appears to be an antenna. “ _I’m_ the one doing all the work.”

“Yeah, pressing a button, you’ve really got it rough,” Grant’s double mutters.

Jemma’s Grant fumbles for her hand, which she gives him gladly. As nice as the thought that they’re together in multiple universes may be, this entire scene is off-putting and surreal. Her natural curiosity is warring against a very strong desire to have their doubles _gone_.

Unfortunately, her curiosity is winning. “Exactly how does the fabric of the multiverse come to unravel?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” Grant’s double says. “The fabric of the multiverse is unraveling because _someone_ caught the attention of an ancient Inhuman deity, who—when she turned him down—then cast a spell to try to win her over.”

“And whose fault is it that he was even on Earth to cast the spell in the first place?” Jemma’s double demands.

“Hey, I’m not the one who—”

“Please don’t ask any more questions,” Grant whispers as their doubles begin to bicker.

“Yes,” Jemma says, a touch faintly. “Yes, I think we’re better off not knowing.”

For a moment or two, they watch in bemused silence as their doubles argue. It would be nice to just…leave them to it, but Jemma’s double is clutching her blue device in a way that makes Jemma think she’s going to start beating Grant’s double with it, and she _truly_ doesn’t want to have to explain a dead—or even unconscious—doppelgänger of her fiancé to any kind of authority.

“Grant!” she snaps. “That’s _enough_!”

Silenced by the interruption, both doubles stare at her with surprise.

Grant’s double recovers quickly, though. “Hey! How come _she_ doesn’t get yelled at?”

“Please,” she says, pinning him with her least impressed glare. “You think I don’t know what you look like when you’re deliberately winding me up?”

Jemma’s Grant laughs. Her double makes a face.

“Awwwwww,” Grant’s double says, smiling. “That’s cute.” He looks down at the other Jemma. “I forgot how adorable you used to be before you went all…Furiosa.”

“Adorable?” Jemma echoes, wondering if she should be insulted. Her double is, but that likely goes without saying.

“Look at that face!” he says, gesturing loosely to his own. “You’re like a tiny angry kitten. Adorable.”

“He’s right,” Jemma’s Grant agrees. Jemma elbows him. “ _Ow_.”

The device Jemma’s double is still holding chimes loudly, and she tucks it away with a relieved sigh.

“All right,” she says. “The walls here are fixed. Time to move on.”

“Finally,” Grant’s double says, and then gives Jemma—and it’s very clearly aimed at _her_ , not Grant—an apologetic smile. “No offense, sweetheart. It’s just that you two seem a little too domestic for me. It’s really not my scene.”

“None taken,” she says. Judging by the Kevlar and guns, she wouldn’t be particularly comfortable in _their_ scene, either.

Behind the doubles, a new storm cloud is brewing up, strange wisps of cloud appearing from nowhere and wrapping around each other to form an ever-growing whole. It’s a fascinating and beautiful sight, but neither double even glances at it.

“Jemma,” her double says. With reluctance, Jemma drags her eyes away from the cloud. “Just a reminder: you _don’t_ have to live with him. He’s not your only option. In fact, there’s a perfectly wonderful astronaut named—”

“No, nope,” the other Grant interrupts, covering her mouth. “Stop trying to ruin my lives.”

Jemma’s double attempts to pull his hand away and, when that fails, stomps on his foot. Grant’s double rolls his eyes and shoves her into the cloud.

“Have a nice life,” he says. “Congratulations on the wedding. Oh, and Grant? Keep her away from Fitz.” He shakes his head. “Guy’s nothing but trouble.”

With that, he vanishes into the cloud. A moment later, it too is gone.

There are cars passing on the street outside and birds singing in the garden. Life, it appears, continues.

“Well,” Grant says. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going back to bed.”

“Good idea,” she agrees at once. “And when we wake up, we’ll pretend this never happened.”

“My thoughts exactly.”


End file.
